Searching for meaning in Raptors' final games

Searching for meaning in Toronto Raptors' final games

TORONTO — It was Anthony Hopkins who got to speak the most famous line of dialogue in the cinematic version of The Lion In Winter.

When it was suggested to his Richard The Lionheart that it does not matter how one meets his or her demise, he responded, “When the fall is all there is, it matters.” Enter the Toronto Raptors, who are certainly left with nothing more than the fall. It has been the franchise’s most common refrain at this time of year.

The Raptors have 11 games remaining, following their 107-88 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, and here is a reasonable question: Do those matter — like, at all?

“We always want to end on a positive note,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said before the game. “Even though we’re playing all of the young guys and stuff like that, I think going forward for our program, for the development of our psyche, whatever it is, you want to be positive.”

“I think that’s always important, to do that. Every time you step on the floor, no matter what you’re trying to do, you want to win to try to keep that momentum or to keep that feeling going.”

With no first-round draft pick to lose for, the Raptors certainly have less incentive to lose than most of their lottery-bound peers. Since they will be giving their draft pick to the Thunder unless it falls in the top three, the Raptors’ results, to that end, are likely meaningless.

But how about beyond that? A quick look at this year’s ascending teams shows winning at this time of the year is without merit. The four teams poised to make the playoffs this year that failed to do so last year — Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Golden State and Houston — combined to finish last season 23-37, with none finishing above .500 in their final 15 games. The Warriors, perhaps the biggest surprise in the league this year, wrapped up their tank job by finishing the year 3-12.

The Raptors, meanwhile, have gone 27-33 in their final 15 games of the past four seasons. In those years, they had one bad finish to the season, two mediocre ones and a single good one. They all portended the same thing: sub-mediocrity. There is no clear evidence that these games matter in the least.

But this team features a whole lot of young players, and it is never good for young players to get used to losing.

“You want to build a feeling of learning how to win, continuing to win to develop that feeling of going into the summer: OK, we’re going in a positive note, be excited about the summer,” Casey said.” You always want to have that feeling of winning. We’ve got to develop that [ability] of how to win. We’ve lost so many close games. I counted 23 close games — a lot of them we were leading going into the fourth quarter. OK, let’s close a game. We got ourselves there. Let’s finish it out.”

It is unclear whether or not Wednesday’s game could be defined as “close,” making Casey’s number 24. The Raptors were tied 75-75 after three quarters, and then fall apart: The Hawks went on a 25-7 run to start the quarter, not helped by Amir Johnson’s exit from the game because of a leg contusion.